Launch of Environmental Security’s Newest Report

In January 2018, the Stimson Center’s Environmental Security program launched its newest report Casting a Wider Net: The Security Implications of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing. The report details the six security threats associated with IUU fishing, which are the:

Threat to ecological security

Threat to economic security

Threat to food security

Threat to geopolitical stability

Threat of maritime piracy

Threat of transnational organized crime

The perpetrators of IUU fishing are not just the local fisherman catching a bit more than his quota allows, but include a range of offenders: from foreign vessels fishing illegally in another nation’s sovereign waters to criminal networks that participate in a variety of illicit activities, including trafficking in drugs, arms, and humans, as well as utilizing shell companies to launder money and slaves to carry out their operations. For these reasons and many others explored within this report, IUU fishing poses a risk to national security and addressing it will require more effort and focus than can be addressed by the conservation community and natural resource management agencies alone. These threats necessitate countries across the world, and particularly the United States, to develop a whole-of-government strategy to combat IUU fishing. This integrated approach involves tapping into the expertise of agencies across government, including those with knowledge spanning from natural resource management, development, trade and finance, to intelligence gathering and law enforcement, as well as the wide community of stakeholders interested in combating IUU fishing.

Casting a Wider Net: The Security Implications of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing, argues that IUU fishing is a threat to national security due to its multivariate impacts on individuals, communities, economies, institutions, and governments. It sets out a series of recommendations that articulate a whole-of-government strategy that the U.S. government and other foreign partners can utilize to curb the impacts of IUU fishing, which are to:

Create a whole-of-government approach

Increase engagement of Combatant Commands (COCOMS)

Expand shiprider agreements between the U.S. and foreign countries

Encourage countries to ratify, implement, and enforce the Port State Measures Agreement